South Dakota
AG reviewing Noem’s meeting with daughter
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota’s attorney general said Tuesday he is reviewing concerns from state lawmakers over a meeting Gov. Kristi Noem held last year that included both her daughter and a state employee who was overseeing her daughter’s application to become a certified real estate appraiser.
“I have been contacted by concerned citizens and legislators,” Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg said in a statement. “I am actively reviewing their concerns and I will be following the steps prescribed in codified law in relation to those questions.”
Ravnsborg didn’t immediately respond to a question about what steps he might take. The attorney general is tasked under state law with issuing legal opinions to lawmakers.
The Associated Press reported Monday that Noem held the meeting shortly after the state agency had moved to deny her daughter the license last year. Noem’s daughter eventually received her license four months later. Afterward, the state employee who directed the agency was allegedly pressured to retire by Noem’s cabinet secretary. The state employee, Sherry Bren, eventually received a $200,000 payment from the state to withdraw the complaint and leave her job.
Ethics experts said the episode raised concerns that the governor had abused the power of her office.
The governor’s office declined to answer detailed questions from the AP, and Noem’s spokesman dismissed the AP’s report as a political attack on the governor.
Noem, 49, is seen among a handful of early GOP hopefuls for the White House in 2024. In just her first term as governor after nearly a decade in Congress, her star has risen as she has honed a message of more freedom and less government — particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, when she decried restrictions being put in place elsewhere. Though Noem has said she’s focused on re-election in 2022, she’s visited key early presidential states Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and shown a willingness to jab at potential rivals.
Though Ravnsborg and Noem are both Republicans, they have become political enemies over the last year after the governor pressured Ravnsborg to resign following a car crash in which he struck and killed a man walking on a highway. The attorney general pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors in the crash. The Legislature is planning to convene in November to consider whether to proceed with impeaching Ravnsborg.
Democrats in the Legislature, who hold just a handful of seats, have also called for an investigation into the governor’s conduct during her daughter’s appraiser certification application.
Washington
Rape trial of ex-judge to move ahead after judge reassigned
ASOTIN, Wash. (AP) — The delayed trial of a former judge in southeastern Washington charged with rape and other crimes will now move forward with the initial judge assigned to the case.
According to an order signed last week and filed in Asotin County Superior Court, Spokane County Judge Michael Price has been reassigned to the Scott D. Gallina case, The Lewiston Tribune reported.
Price presided over Gallina’s initial bond hearing, arraignment and status hearings in 2019, following the former judge’s arrest at the courthouse that April.
Gallina, 57, is charged with second-degree rape, fourth-degree sexual assault and indecent liberties for his alleged misconduct involving employees in the Asotin County Courthouse while he was the Superior Court judge in Asotin, Garfield and Columbia counties.
He has pleaded innocent to all charges and remains free on bond.
The trial has been delayed multiple times because of the pandemic and efforts to find a judge for the case.
Price originally recused himself when newly-elected Superior Court Judge Brooke Burns took office. She cited a conflict of interest and recused herself.
Walla Walla County Judge Scott Wolfram was appointed and removed at the defense’s request. Walla Walla County Judge Brandon Johnson took over but recused himself after handling a case in the Asotin County Courthouse and meeting some of the alleged victims. Earlier this month, Yakima County Judge Jeffery Swan was removed at the request of prosecutors, and Olympia court officials went back to Price.
The trial is expected to begin sometime in 2022 in Asotin County.
Oklahoma
Cherokee Nation reaches $75M settlement with drug companies
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Cherokee Nation and three opioid distributors reached a $75 million settlement to resolve opioid-related claims against the companies, the tribe and the companies announced Tuesday.
The Tahlequah, Oklahoma-based tribe announced the settlement, the largest in Cherokee Nation history, with McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation. The settlement will be paid out over six and a half years.
“Today’s settlement will make an important contribution to addressing the opioid crisis in the Cherokee Nation Reservation; a crisis that has disproportionately and negatively affected many of our citizens,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement. “This settlement will enable us to increase our investments in mental health treatment facilities and other programs to help our people recover.”
The tribe sued the three companies, along with several pharmacy companies, in 2017, alleging they contributed to “an epidemic of prescription opioid abuse” within the tribe and have not done enough to prevent tribal members from acquiring illegally prescribed opioid painkillers.
The three companies said in a joint statement that the settlement is a step toward “a broader settlement with all federally recognized Native American tribes across the country.”
“While the companies strongly dispute the allegations against them, they believe this resolution will allow the companies to focus their attention and resources on the safe and secure delivery of medications and therapies while delivering meaningful relief to affected communities, and will also support efforts to achieve a broad resolution with the remaining Native American tribes,” the statement said.
The Cherokee Nation’s claims against Walmart, Walgreens and CVS are pending.
The settlement announced Tuesday is separate from similar claims brought by other tribes, as well as state and local governments, around the country, including a multi-district litigation proceeding in federal court in Ohio.
Former Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter in 2019 secured a $465 million judgment against consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson in the first such state trial against an opioid manufacturer. That case is currently on appeal.
Hunter also secured multimillion-dollar settlements with other drugmakers over the state’s opioid crisis.
From 2007 to 2017, more than 4,600 people in Oklahoma died from opioid overdoses, state statistics show.
